


it's not (but it can be)

by fishycorvid



Series: but we'll wait for the sun to rise [2]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: AU, Angst, F/M, but only vaguely, companion piece to "mutual agreement" but can probably make sense without it, set during charges & specs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 13:32:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14770563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishycorvid/pseuds/fishycorvid
Summary: For all his braggadocio, Jake looks almost lonely, standing stock-still in the middle of a parking lot, a box of all his belongings clutched in his hands. In that box is the material proof of life for the last five or so years of his continued existence: old cases and evidence he’d never correctly filed away, mixtapes he’d made while bored, twelve thumb drives he’d bought and subsequently lost one by one, fidget toys, office supplies that had spent years strewn aimlessly across his desk, photos he’d shoved into desk drawers. It was all evidence, in a way. Evidence that he’d been there, somehow.Now, though: shoved fit to burst into a cardboard box, leaving a desk empty except for a few crumbs and ink stains, lingering still. He almost laughs at the idea of leftover messes being his only legacy.“Jake?”





	it's not (but it can be)

**Author's Note:**

> anyways i felt like i had to write this so here we GO boys, enjoy

For all his braggadocio, Jake looks almost lonely, standing stock-still in the middle of a parking lot, a box of all his belongings clutched in his hands. In that box is the material proof of life for the last five or so years of his continued existence: old cases and evidence he’d never correctly filed away, mixtapes he’d made while bored, twelve thumb drives he’d bought and subsequently lost one by one, fidget toys, office supplies that had spent years strewn aimlessly across his desk, photos he’d shoved into desk drawers. It was all evidence, in a way. Evidence that he’d been there, somehow. 

Now, though: shoved fit to burst into a cardboard box, leaving a desk empty except for a few crumbs and ink stains, lingering still. He almost laughs at the idea of leftover messes being his only legacy. 

“Jake?” 

He spins around, one hand fumbling for his gun, and ends up almost dropping his cardboard box, which he has to stagger over to save. “Amy?” 

The detective laughs wryly, and when Jake cranes his neck to look at her before straightening up, she’s standing right in front of him. “Hi,” she says, and her face is nervous and tense but somehow calm at the same time. There’s some sort of feeling growing at the base of Jake’s sternum that he doesn’t want to look into, the kind that he’s getting increasingly familiar with; the feeling of a new tectonic shift, one reaching straight on down to his core. 

“Hi,” he replies, and his voice comes out weak, strained, quiet. He clears his throat and tries again. “Hi, Amy.” 

She leans back against his car, a far-off look in her eyes as she gazes at the box he’s clenching tight in his hands, knuckles turning pale in the orange glow of the streetlights. After a while, maybe just to break the silence, she mutters, “Amazing assignment.” 

Jake chuckles, a rough, half-sighing noise. “Yeah. Bet you’d kill to be in my shoes.” She sends a pointed look at him-- dark circles under his eyes, lips tugging down at the edges, ragged nails, raw knuckles-- but nods nonetheless, smiling dryly. 

“Duh. I mean, clearly I’d be more put-together.” 

He snickers and leans back against the car, too, so they’re side to side. The metal of the hood is cold against the palm of his hand, and, subconsciously, he slides his hand along the slope of it. 

“Well, that just goes without saying.” Jake tosses his head to look over at her, and she’s smiling the way she does sometimes and that he never fails to notice, no matter how much he tries not to: subdued, almost secretive, eyes slanted down towards the ground, but he can still see the warmth that rests there in her gaze, just under the surface. Something inside his chest clenches like he’s being suffocated. The silence is not uncomplicated. Not relaxed. Not without its own tenseness. But it feels innately, genuinely, dependably _theirs._ It’s theirs, and that irrefutable, constant fact lies in so many things that it takes Jake’s breath away, for a moment, even just as he's watching the curve of her cheek or the glint of orange light off her dark brown eyes. 

(He knows she doesn’t have to be down here. She has no reason, no viable excuse. She is here because she wants to be, because she wants to hear his voice, see his smile, laugh at his idiotic jokes for what will probably be the last time in God knows how long. And that knowledge-- it gives Jake pause. It stops him from getting in the car, bidding her a quick goodbye, and driving away as soon as possible. It stops him from launching himself into the job, too much and too fast. It stops him from dating other girls, from even really _wanting_ other girls. He’s too entranced by the nature of it all, the nature of her being here right now in this moment in the middle of the night, on grimy asphalt, cut through with a harsh light.) 

“Jake,” she says quietly, and he can feel the soft weight of her fingers brushing against his, and his breath hitches, just for a moment. 

Breathed back, barely audible: “Yeah?”

Amy is silent, then, and he can’t make himself look back over there. He fixes his eyes straight ahead, determinedly watching a car pull out of a parking space a block away, headlights flickering on, engine revving. 

“I don’t want you to go. Now. At all. In general.” There’s a soft, shuddering breath from her as she finishes the sentence, and he thinks that if he concentrates he might be able to feel her fingers trembling against his, and he almost instinctively reaches out to grab them, to hold her hand in his. He doesn’t. Just clenches his fist and closes his eyes. 

“It’ll be okay, Ames. You know that.” Wary. This is uncharted territory, here; Jake remembers their deal because he knows there’s no other alternative. A warning in his tone: _please just be the coworker, the friend, the_ Amy. _Please. I don't know how much of this I can take, now and always. We can’t keep oscillating back and forth across this line, expecting things to be different, because they never are, and we know that--_

She grabs his hand, then, tight and sudden, and surprise forces him to look into her intense, dark eyes. There are no tears there, just strong, unwavering Amy Santiago. 

“We’re going to work this out. I don’t care that I’m with Teddy. I don’t care that you’re going undercover. I don’t care that our lives are generally always on the line, and our compensation for that risk is pathetic. I don’t care that I’m neat and you’re an absolute fucking mess. I don’t care that we’re coworkers. I don’t care about any of that, Jake.” 

Jake huffs out a shaky laugh, but he can barely inhale. “Our deal?” 

Her fingers are strong and anchoring, wrapped around his. “I don’t care about that either.” 

The pad of his forefinger brushes over her palm, back and forth, and even he doesn’t know if it’s purposeful or not. “Ames,” he whispers, voice strained. “I’m going undercover. We made a deal. This can’t be--” Jake inhales quickly. “I like you. A lot. And I’m not asking you to- to wait for me, or whatever, because that would be unreasonable. And you’re with Teddy anyways.” 

“Do you want this?” Amy asks, voice barely more than a whisper. Her eyes bore into his, searching and open. 

Jake laughs weakly, shaking his head and harshly raking his hands through his hair. “Of course I do. God, Amy, I-- of course I fucking do.” 

“Then I’ll wait.” She exhales, slow and even. “I care about you a lot, Jake.” Amy brings a hand up to his face, fingertips brushing over his orbital bone and she holds herself there, for a moment, giving him time to pull away as she slowly leans in. "And I know we promised to never talk about that night. But I don't think I can do that anymore." He doesn’t move away. "Because what if you don't come back to me again?" Frozen, he catalogues every detail of her face, the flutter of her eyelashes against her cheek as her eyes close, the slight part of her lips, the slope of her nose, the small strands of her hair coming loose from her ponytail and hanging across her skin. When her lips touch his, he pulls her closer, winding his hands into her hair, tugging lightly at her ponytail, and her other hand raises to grip his arm tightly. She presses Jake back against the car, lips languid and quietly intense against his, and he has to remind himself every few seconds to breathe in and out and in and out, even though the only thing he wants to feel is Amy, Amy filling up his lungs and covering every inch of his skin and brushing her sunlight through his life. He can’t think. 

“Wow,” is the first thing Jake says when she pulls away, her eyes flickering nervously over his face. Maybe normally it would sound sarcastic, but it’s an amazed exhalation accompanied with an idle thumb tracing her jawbone and veering up to run over her still-slightly-parted lips. 

Grinning at him in a way that could be construed as cocky but is really just sentimental, Amy laughs, “You’re an idiot, Peralta.” 

He chuckles then, forehead tipping to lean against hers, her hand smoothing over his hoodie-covered arm. “Maybe so. But you love it.” 

A smile creeps across her face, and Jake can feel it taking form against his hand. “Come back first, Jake. Then we’ll talk.” Amy kisses him again, this time soft and chaste and everything she can’t make herself say in the grainy, orange light of a parking lot leaned up against the hood of his crappy old car. “But maybe I do,” she murmurs when she pulls away just enough to murmur against his lips. “Maybe I do.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! if you enjoyed this please leave a comment or kudos or whatever!
> 
> also hmu on tumblr, i'm fishycorvid.


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